Emperor Kangxi, Zhu Yuanzhang, Wang Anshi, Tang Xuanzong, and Dayu, who controlled the water...... In the Nanluo Theater, the actors walked through the audience and threw a personal name and question to the children, going back to the source of Chinese civilization like dots and lines. When the bell rings again, a bone with an obscure secret leads the three children to travel back to the Yin Shang era 3,000 years ago, and embark on an adventure to explore friendship, family affection, and traditional culture.
On April 12, Beijing Children's Art Theater's historical fantasy children's drama "Oracle School" ushered in its premiere. Although it is positioned as a "children's drama", the sincerity of the work can completely allow "adults" to gain enlightenment beyond expectations.
scene
The stage presents the Yin Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago
The mischievous and witty Yoyo, the erudite and intelligent Tian Tian, and the greedy and ignorant little pudding, three children with different personalities landed in the Yin Shang Dynasty 3,000 years ago through a magical tent and an ancient bone. On the stage, a rough and mysterious atmosphere permeates, and at the beginning of "Oracle School", the unperfunctory scenery, images, lighting, and costumes are eye-catching.
"Oracle Bone School" tells a story that contains various elements such as suspense, adventure, and knowledge popularization: the three of them meet a teenager named "Abandonment", and in the process of following him to study at the Oracle Bone School, the social order of the Shang Dynasty, the writing system, the style of the times that advocate divination and sacrifice, important cultural relics such as the stepmother Wuding, and historical figures such as the good queen are gradually revealed. In the 90-minute duration, the plot is reversed layer by layer, the group portraits of the characters are vividly portrayed, and the children of Generation Z collide with many jokes when they meet their ancestors with modern civilization, but bravery, friendship, and kindness are always precious qualities that are not dimmed by time.
"It's not worse than a play for adults!" Mr. Dong, the audience, sighed. He was going to take his daughter to find a weekend pastime, but he didn't expect the quality of this work to be so surprising, and the compact development of the story made Mr. Dong, who was once busy replying to work WeChat, completely put down his mobile phone and accompanied his daughter to devote himself to the adventure of the group. In particular, Mr. Dong sighed that no matter the actors' performances or the presentation of the stage, "Oracle School" did not use childish methods to deal with the young audience, "Whether enough respect is given to children, we can see at a glance." ”
It is reported that the first round of performances of "Oracle School" will last until April 27. Outside the stage, Oracle's journey of discovery continues—Nanluo Theater has collaborated with the popular IP "Naturalist Chinese Characters" team to introduce interactive experiences such as videos, stamp collections, flip music, and hopscotch, filling the space inside and outside the theater into an amusement park for Oracle. Last year, Nanluo Theater was shortlisted for the first batch of performing arts space cultivation projects in Beijing, "This is another innovative activity launched by Nanluo Theater after the film exhibition and art exhibition." Wang Dong, the operator of Nanluo Theater and the dean of Beijing Children's Art, said. In the future, Nanluo Theatre will continue to explore diverse artistic experiences and continuously expand the boundaries and possibilities of theatrical aesthetic education.
Behind
Children's dramas that are not inferior, are full of ingenuity
"In recent years, Beijing Children's Arts has cultivated a group of very young artistic talents, and they are bringing high-quality and thoughtful stage works to the next generation, which is the most happy thing for the theater to see. Duan Jianling, vice president of Beijing Children's Art, said. In the view of Shen Lixing, the screenwriter and director of "Oracle School", and Huang Jiajia, the author of the original book, the answer must be no.
"Oracle School" is adapted from Huang Jiajia's children's literature of the same name, and the series has launched 6 books so far, with sales exceeding one million. Huang Jiajia is a mother of two children, and when she wrote the book, she found that the way many books were written was still at the level of decades ago, "and the children's current aesthetic concept is misaligned, they understand a lot, and their thinking ability is not much worse than that of adults." Huang Jiajia has watched a lot of children's dramas with children, and there are not a few who have dragged the rhythm and rough techniques, and adults often "accommodate" children according to their own imagination, but "it makes children not enjoyable." ”
Huang Jiajia wrote his observations of children into the original work of "Oracle School", which is funny and suspenseful, which is a style that children love very much. At the same time, Shen Lixing has highlighted the contradictions and dramas in the adaptation, and the 90-minute performance has limited carrying capacity, so some of the plots and characters in the original work have been deleted and merged, and the text as a carrier of civilization, that is, the clue throughout the story - oracle bone inscription, its meaning has been further strengthened and amplified.
The inspiration for this whole drama comes from the field collection of the independent creative team in Anyang, Henan Province. In order to create a sense of the times on the stage as much as possible, in February this year, the main creative team walked into the Yinxu Museum. "We have an in-depth understanding of the development of oracle bone inscriptions and knowledge about divination and sacrifices, and many objects and pictures have become the prototypes of this creation. Shen Lixing recalls that the core expression of the work was also inspired at this time, that is, "through words, we see the people and the world 3,000 years ago."
Merchants are heavy ghosts and gods. In the play, the priests dance and sing the ballad of "Destiny Xuanyu, descend to give birth to business", and push the mysterious atmosphere to a climax with a primitive sacrificial scene. In just a few minutes of the plot, the main creative team referred to the allusion of "Mulberry Forest Praying for Rain", used costumes that absorbed the mask elements of the ancient Shu Kingdom in Sanxingdui, and composed Zhang Shu combined with "Shang Song Xuanniao" in the "Book of Songs" to compose music, and used drums and chanting to extend the sense of auditory depth. At the performance scene, the children couldn't take their eyes off it, and they could actually be keenly aware of the ingenuity and intentions in creation.
"When I was a kid watching "Detective Conan", I didn't feel like a kid at all, and there was nothing I couldn't understand. Shen Lixing compares his heart to his heart, hoping to present his works full of sincerity and sense of substitution to today's young audiences. does not look down and is not perfunctory, from the well-received and childlike "Hutong Yaya" growth trilogy in the past two years, to the current word-of-mouth "Oracle School", in the exploration of high-quality children's drama creation, Beijing Children's Art has left a bright color that belongs to "produced in Beijing".